Word: khambas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...limousine, Jeep and horse, guides steered the domesticated newsmen along a beaten path that carefully skirted Communist Chinese troops fighting on India's border, a do-or-die stand by Khamba tribesmen in western Tibet. Even when the opportunity for independent sightseeing presented itself, the newsmen turned away; no one interviewed India's Consul General Shiv Lai Chhiber, spotted in a Lhasa rug shop, because, as one correspondent explained: "Our main interest was in social reforms...
When the rebel Khamba tribesmen began attacking Red outposts within 40 miles of Lhasa, the Red commander demanded that the Dalai Lama prove his "solidarity" by ordering his 5,000-man bodyguard against the rebels. It was a shrewd move, for in the past Lhasa had had its own troubles with the Khambas, who recognized the spiritual rule of the Dalai Lama but had a habit of killing his tax gatherers and robbing caravans. The God-King solved it neatly: he sent a message to the Khambas saying cryptically that "bloodshed was not the answer," but flatly refused to lend...
...begged the consul to accompany them while they handed a protest petition to the Red Chinese. The monks of the city's three great lamaseries prepared to die before letting the Dalai Lama be taken from them. Hidden stores of arms were passed out to the furious populace. Khamba tribesmen with their rifles, swords and lean, savage dogs began to filter into Lhasa. The nervous Chinese set up machine-gun posts, trained artillery on the Potala and the Norbulingka palaces...
...Panchen Lama, a wan young man of 22 who is unable to control the monks of his own lamaseries. But the Red troops, estimated at 60,000-80,000, must be supplied from a base 70 miles distant, over a single, hazardous road that can be easily cut by Khamba guerrillas...
...week's end the Khamba rebels were reportedly joined by equally fierce Amdowa and Golok tribesmen, spreading the fires of revolt the length and breadth of Tibet, and putting into the field against the Chinese Reds an estimated 100,000 warriors, who were carrying the fight to the Chinese provinces of Szechwan and Tsinghai as well as Tibet proper. The Red radio protested plaintively that "reactionary elements" from China itself had joined the battle...